Hawkeyes secure first-round win in NCAA Women's Tournament

Caitlin Clark’s star has risen so high that ESPN is dispatching a reporter to Iowa City to chronicle her every move during the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

Holly Rowe, a 2023 Naismith Hall of Fame Curt Gowdy Media Award recipient, is heading to Iowa City to cover Iowa’s opening game (and second-round matchup barring a historic upset). She will embed with the Clark crew. ESPN will formally announce Rowe’s tournament role on Sunday.

“We have had a presence on the ground covering the special moments with Caitlin this year, and I have been at every one of her games where she set a record,” Rowe said Saturday. “I see it as an extension of the dedicated coverage we have had with Caitlin all year. I think there is an intrigue and appetite for all things Caitlin.”

“(Holly) has been on the Caitlin Clark beat, if you will, tracking and following her and being present with her when she broke records earlier in the year,” said Sara Gaiero, an ESPN vice president of production who is responsible for strategic oversight and management of ESPN’s coverage of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. “That level of coverage is needed and necessary and warranted this year. It’s not something we’ve done for the previous first and second rounds for a specific player.”

Gaiero said Rowe will be available to SportsCenter and other ESPN entities that request her during the opening rounds. She’ll report on Iowa’s practices and other things around the game. Another example of the Clark effect: For Iowa’s opening-round NCAA games, Rowe will serve as the traditional sideline reporter. That’s currently the only game right now, Gaiero said, for the first and second round that has a sideline reporter. (ESPN will staff all games with sideline reporters after the second round.)

As much fun as I’ve had watching Caitlin Clark launch 3s from the logo, I’ve gotta go with an assist for this. I’ve had a chance to see her in person three times this season and I walk away every time saying, “Television might give folks an idea of Clark as a shooter, but it doesn’t even scratch the surface in terms of how good she is as a passer.” To truly understand her vision and her ability to find these needle-threading windows, you need to be able to see the full court, not sections selected by a cameraperson. Seeing Clark make 60-foot passes in transition look easy or watching her send an absolute rocket through four defenders is never going to get old. This specific one is the assist that made Clark the Big Ten leader in assists, so it feels appropriate to have a pass that shows her vision, precision and execution all on full display included here. Plus, nice finish, Hannah Stuelke. I’ll miss that connection next year. Check the pass at the 51-second mark below.

Last spring, I first noticed something special was happening when I couldn’t walk half a block in Dallas without running into large packs of Iowa or South Carolina fans. There were also my guy friends back home who, for the first time, were planning their weekend around the women’s NCAA Tournament games instead of the men’s. And all the sports talk radio channels were discussing Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. My spidey senses were tingling.

I could feel it in my bones that the sport was primed for a breakthrough moment, though I couldn’t have imagined that nearly 10 million people would tune in for the Iowa-LSU national title game, shattering the previous record for viewership of a women’s basketball game. But I could tell that the barrier of apathy had been broken; these women, that late-game taunting, the sport itself — it’d all be talked about for days and weeks and months to come.

I have the same feeling right now.

Another giant leap is coming for a sport that ought to be growing accustomed to these gains. As we head into March Madness, it is the women’s side of the tournament that is taking center stage. It is the women’s stars who shine the brightest. It is the women’s game with the most intriguing storylines.

And … that’s not even debatable!

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Iowa women’s basketball fans scooped up every ticket to the NCAA Tournament’s first and second rounds at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in just 30 minutes, the school announced Monday morning.

It’s a common occurrence for Iowa’s women’s basketball team to sell out its home NCAA Tournament games, which it now has done for three consecutive years. But to do it so quickly speaks to how beloved this team is by its fans.

Counting two likely games this weekend, the top-seeded Hawkeyes (29-5) have sold out 34 of 36 possible games. The only two not sold out took place in an exempt Thanksgiving tournament in Florida.

Earlier this month, the entire Big Ten women’s basketball tournament was sold out in Minneapolis, something the men’s tournament was not close to doing this weekend. By most estimates, 90 percent of the women’s basketball attendees were Iowa fans.